On the road: The issue of sleep

For a long time, I struggled with sleep issues: the inability to fall asleep, and regular wakings through the night. I was, quite literally, sleeping like a baby - that is, not well and not much. After a massive focus on sleep hygiene, meditation and taking certain supplements, I achieved the delicious luxury of falling asleep within 20 minutes of lying down and waking up only once my alarm sounded.

Unfortunately, like a lot of babies, I have regressed now that we are in the van. Not only that, I am waking up with back pain. The reason for this is simple: our mattress sucks. It’s just not built for being slept on long-term. So, yesterday we launched a focused mattress search in Blenheim, laying on about 40 different mattresses across six different retailers. We found several mattresses that felt comfortable, would support my grizzly old back, and would mitigate the partner disturbance of Dan doing his nightly sleep twerking routine.

Alas, double mattresses which would fit the reasonably restrictive height limitations of our over-the-cab bunk were nowhere to be found. Apparently, nobody bothers with double, or even queen-sized beds anymore as king-sized is, well…. King, apparently.

At the end of a long, long afternoon of tromping around and not finding much success, we made our final stop at Beds‘R’Us. Miraculously, there was a double mattress that was super comfy and IN STOCK, right there, in their back storage. Gleefully, we wheeled it out to the van to see if it was a good fit, as it was a little higher than we had originally planned. After some huffing and pushing, the mattress got into the van and it all looked promising. That is, up until we realised that we couldn’t get this chonker of a mattress up into the bed cavity as it was so well-sprung that it refused to bend at all. It was a failure.

I may have had a bit of a tantrum, dear reader. But let’s not dwell on such unpleasantness.

After I had drunk a cup of tea and eaten a decent amount of fudge, I sent out an email to all Sleepyhead suppliers, asking if they had any of our other choices in stock. I got a reply back from Thorndon saying they did. Guess where we will be getting off the Bluebridge Ferry later this morning? MUCH excitement.

All appendages remain crossed, and I am hopeful that this mattress (already proven to be more bendy) can be persuaded to make our bunk its home. I will keep you updated… Until then, I am going to have a nap on the ferry and dream of better sleeps to come!

07/01/20 Edited to add: Beds ‘R’ Us Thordon Quay is my fave shop! They had the right mattress, in the right size, in their shop and even allowed us to back right up to the front door in our van. They also let us try the mattress out in the bag to see if it would fit and, best of all, it was half price! REJOICING ALL ROUND!

Mad props to Dan for sacrificing some shoulder space to accommodate my sleeping needs on our slightly thicker than intended mattress, and for being the main muscle who somehow managed to fit that chonky slice of sleep paradise into our over-the-cab bunk space. You are my hero!